Kids Games!

Last week we had the privilege of being a part of a VBS program in our neighborhood.  The Bridge Street House of Prayer (BSHOP) put on this VBS at a local school and invited kids in the area to come and learn about God.  

Many kids came and enjoyed the worship, skits, bible lessons, and special classes called Tracks.

 The high school youth group from Caledonia CRC came to help run the program as they learned about the West Side and served there each day.  We served along side of them as small group leaders and were able to share the gospel with many kids who had never heard it before!  This was an eye opening experience as even in Romania most of the kids we worked with had at least heard of Jesus.

We were delighted to teach a special track on the topic of photography. I (Mark) created lessons on the computer using outlines created by Rebecca.  We were able to borrow cameras from another local church so that each child would have their own to use.

Though this class we wanted the kids to learn how to capture the beauty of God's creation in pictures.  We taught simple but important lessons like how to frame the picture, using different types of lighting, and how to take artistic shots.  All of our kids were VERY excited to use the cameras and they did a wonderful job learning to take great pictures!

Here are some of our students.  Below are examples of the pictures that the kids took:

At the end of the week we printed off some of their pictures and had them make a photo collage to take home as a souvenir.  We all really enjoyed working on these and presenting them in front of all of the other kids.  

We had a really great time helping out and are thankful for the partnership that we have with the BSHOP.  We know that many lives were touched, kid learned about Jesus and had a blast doing it.  We pray that the seeds planted will grow and ask God to continue working in the lives of these kids.

We are now looking forward in a few weeks to hosting a middle school arts camp at Gold Ave Church in partnership with the BSHOP.  Kids will be able to learn about many neat things and we will again teach photography.  Would you pray for God to work out the details and to call many youth from the neighborhood to himself?  Thanks for continuing to pray for us and these kids!

Spring 2015 Newsletter God is working in our midst Since beginning to work at Gold Avenue Church on the West Side of Grand Rapids, things have been happening at a breakneck pace. We are thankful to God for how he has been working and hope that the following stories inspire faith and trust in God who guides and provides.

Children's Worship We started our first new ministry at church and it has been a great blessing.  Young children go downstairs during the church service to hear a Bible story, worship, practice listening to what God is saying to them through scripture and to practice praying for each other. One parent recently shared that they are seeing fruit already and greatly encouraged us that God is working through this ministry.  Please pray that God continues to build up the faith of these children and continues to bless this ministry and all those involved. Romania Trip We had the privilege of traveling to Romania to take part in the baptism of one of our closest kids - Marius.  It was such a joy to spend time with him and to witness him publicly proclaiming that Jesus Christ is his Lord.  We also were able to go to many of the places we used to work and to see the kids there.  We were greeted with many hugs, kisses, and tears of joy for the very short but sweet reunion.  We enjoyed seeing the kids again so much! Please pray that God will strengthen Marius' faith and help him get through the trials he faces.  Pray that God will watch over all of the kids we love in Romania and that they will be safe and well cared for. New (Old) House Since returning to Michigan we have been living with family and friends.  Even though it has been a huge help to us, we have been asking God to provide us with a place of our own.  After only three weeks of searching we found a wonderful 1919 bungalow with five bedrooms and lots of character.  We are in the process of buying it and are excited to move in soon.  We are praying for help with furniturebecause we don't have much left since going to Romaina. If you or someone you know has gently used furniture that you have been meaning to donate somewhere, please let us know. Please pray that we will be able to move in soon and that living there will bless us and the neighborhood.

Support Update: God has richly blessed us by providing in amazing ways.  In just a few short months we have reached 66% of our needed monthly support. Added with one time gifts we are nearly fully funded for the rest of this year! Please pray that God will raise up more partners so that we can reach 100% of our long term support commitments. Other Happenings:  We are planning to start a Middle School Ministry soon as an outreach to the kids of the neighborhood.  We will also be partnering with other local organizations for several VBS Programs and Block Parties throughout the summer.  We will run a Summer Reading Program for elementary students.  We have already been blessed with some great volunteer teams but there is still a great need for many more workers, especially in Nursery and Sunday School ministries.  Please pray for God to send more workers, and prayerfully consider if He may be calling you to come and use your gifts with us at Gold Ave Church. Please check out a list of ministry opportunities here: Ministry Opportunities List Thank you so much for your love, support, and prayers.  God is doing so much and we are glad to be a part of his work; we trust him to lead each step of the way.  We are so blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful people who desire to build us up and support us, and we pray that God richly blesses you as well! With Love, Mark & Rebecca Essenburg

Special Romania Trip

When we left our home in Romania last fall we told our kids: We will be back to visit.  It wasn't a question of if, it was a question of when.  It was important for them to hear that so that they knew that our leaving wasn't final, they would see us again.  It was also important for us because they had been our kids for the last five years of our lives and it was very hard to leave them.  Having the hope of staying connected and seeing them again lessened the sting of leaving them and starting over again.

Marius, on the left, is one of our closest "kids" (really a young adult) in Romania.  We have known him for years and did a lot together while we were there.  Like most of the kids we worked with in Romania, Marius went through a lot as a kid and ended up at the orphanage.  Things have been hard and he has gone through a lot of pain and hurts.  As our relationship grew so did his desire to learn about God, so our last year there we studied the book of John and we saw changes taking place in his life.

After we left we continued talking with Marius and continued to pray for him.  Others who were still there continued to work with him and mentor him, and even though there were and still are many ups and downs, he decided to follow Jesus Christ and to be baptized!  This was something we couldn't miss so we bought some airline tickets (about three weeks before hand!) and headed over.

We were able to spend much of our week in Romania with Marius.  We spent a lot of time hanging out, doing devotions, talking about questions he had, and ministering to him when he struggled.  

We are so thankful for how God works in people's lives and that he gave Marius the gift of saving faith.  How joyous it was to watch Marius profess his faith in Jesus in front of the whole church and be baptized.  Would you please join us in praying for Marius and all of the others we worked with who have taken this step of faith?  Pray that they will be able to overcome their past and live into their identity as children of God who are loved by him no matter what.  Pray against the attacks of the enemy as he tries to drag them down however he can.  Pray that they will minister to others and that God will be glorified through their lives.

We spent the rest of our time visiting kids that we know at various orphanages.  It was so good to see our kids again, they occupy such a large spot in our heart and we missed them so much.

We led our youth group again by sharing the story of how God has led us since we have been back in America.  We also talked about hearing God and knowing his will for our lives.

We surprised many of the kids who didn't know we were coming for our visit.  It was great to see their faces and hear the squeals of joy, but best of all to enjoy the big hugs they gave us!

We praise and thank God for giving us the opportunity to see our kids again!  Please continue to pray for them, that they will be well taken care of and that they will come to know God!

God is SO GOOD!!!

Spring is here, rejoice!  With the melting of the snow and an abundance of sunshine we have continued to be very blessed, just look at the beautiful flower we found growing in someone's yard!

We have been slacking a bit on writing about what we have been up to personally so I thought I would share some pictures.  We have been keeping busy!

We went to Dinner and a Chef at Artisan of Grand Haven and enjoyed a wonderful meal with Dad and Julie Essenburg.  The chef there makes all the food right in front of the guests so it is really fun!  We enjoy learning new techniques and tasting the really delicious food!

We had a Thai meal with our friends Iain and Jay, I made Massaman Curry which is my favorite!  We enjoy getting together with Iain and Jay to pray for each other and our respective ministries.

We have been enjoying getting to know new friends like Andrew, Lindsay, and Elim.  We have started working with them at church, Lindsay is our worship leader and Andrew is the Director of Community Connections.  We have so much in common as we are both going through similar transition in our lives.  We are so glad that God has brought them into our lives.

I was driving around one evening and saw this beautiful evening view of the city of Grand Rapids, our future home...

Yes, speaking of our future home... God has provided yet again in his perfect timing!  We are in the process of buying a home!

God has revealed his plan to us once again by leading us to this wonderful old house on the West Side of Grand Rapids, which is only a five minute drive from church.  We were planning on going through the homesteading process with Westown Jubilee Housing, but as we went through the process we found out that we were able to get a normal mortgage so we started also looking for houses that were move in ready.  We looked at this house right away when we started three weeks ago and liked it, but we thought it might need too much fixing up...

After looking at several more houses we still felt drawn to this one, so we went to look at it again with Jeff from Westown.  He helped us to get a good idea of what repairs are needed and how much they might cost.  We were happy to hear that there are no major issues and we could move in and tackle projects as we go.

There is a lot of nice wood work and craftsman details in this 1919 home.  Not to mention that it has five bedrooms so we will be able to have a guest room which was something we really wanted.  Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!  We are so excited!  Would you please pray that the buying process goes well and that we can close without a hitch?  Please pray for the current owners to be able to find a place and that God would bless them.  We are thankful for their willingness to negotiate with us and that we were able to buy it for an affordable price.

There is so much more going on which we will talk about more in future posts.  For now, here are some prayer points:

We are in Romania right now, please pray for the rest of our trip to be safe and blessed.

Pray for Marius to be strengthened in his faith as he is baptised Sunday.

Pray for God's leading and our discerning in next steps in ministry.

Pray for wisdom as we will most likely begin adopting through foster care once we have this house.

Thanks as always for keeping us in your prayers, we know that prayer makes a difference, God listens to and answers our prayers!

More Children's Worship

God is so good!  He continues to bless our Children's Worship at church.

As we have been going through the Bible we have been having fun incorporating activities that go along with the stories.

We had a tower building contest when we talked about the tower of Babel.

Here are some of the wonderful drawings of the story.  We ask the kids what they God is telling them about the story and how they can apply it to themselves and others.  We also ask them what they can do about it, because we don't want this to be just head knowledge.  Our desire is that their lives will be impacted and they will experience a loving relationship with Jesus.

We also model praying for others to the kids and are thankful that many of them are starting to join in and pray for their peers.  

Of course the kids love to sing too, we enjoy singing songs that make it easy for them worship God and to remember the songs.  On Easter the kids sang the song 10000 Reasons for the congregation.  They were pretty nervous at first but they got the hang of it and did a wonderful job.  You can watch a portion of the performance by following the link below.

Kids Easter Song

Would you please continue to pray for all of the kids who participate in our Children's Worship?  Ask God to make himself real to them so that they have strong faith that will only continue to be strengthened as they get older.  We long for them to be a generation who is on fire for Jesus!

Please also pray for all of our volunteers who teach and model what it looks like to love Jesus.  We are so thankful for all of them and are glad that God laid it on their hearts to minister to these kids.

Livin' Like Nomads

Not too long after we were married we bought a nice house and were planning on staying there for a long, long time.  We thought we would pay the house off early and then retire there so our bills would be really low!  Selling it and moving to Romania wasn't in our plan at all, but when God called us there we trusted that he was in control.  We had no idea what was in store for us as far as our future living situations.

One... help me count here... two... three... how many different places did we live while we were in Romania... four... five... we were there for five years... six... seven!

Now let's keep counting: one... how many places have we lived since being back from Romania... two... we've been back for almost six months... three... we've moved once a month so far in 2015... four... with more to come soon!

At this point we feel kind of like the gypsies (as pictured above) that we often saw passing through in Romania.  Not having a place to call our own has been one of the hardest parts of our transition next to missing the kids in Romania and being overwhelmed at the abundance and choices in America.  We have been very blessed by the people who have let us stay with them and are thankful that we have never had to worry about not having a place to live.  But the longing for having our own place has just kept getting stronger and stronger the longer we don't have our own stable housing.

God is good though and has been showing us glimpses of what he is working on for us.  A while ago we were meeting with our pastors at FairHaven Church and they mentioned that we should look into Westown Jubilee Housing.  This is a ministry that FairHaven is heavily involved with that buys fixer upper houses in the West Side of Grand Rapids and totally renovates them.  Their program helps people who otherwise might not be able to afford a house to buy a great, like new home.  This also helps bring stability and pride of ownership to a neighborhood which is suffering from a high percentage of rentals and poorly cared for houses.

Here is an example of the work that Westown Jubilee does.  They first buy a house that needs a lot of work.

They totally renovate the house making it very efficient in order to reduce cost of ownership as well.

The finished house might as well be a new house, and thanks to donations and volunteer work the houses are very affordable!

Here is an example of the inside work, the houses are typically gutted and redone from the studs up.

What an amazing transformation!  By God's grace we have started the homesteading process and are excited about the possibility of being able to move in to the neighborhood we will be ministering in. The process could take up to a year so we will rent a place from Westown Jubilee until then. 

There are many things we need prayer for as we go through this process, would you join us in lifting these up to our Father?

-for our final approval for homesteading with Westown Jubilee

-for God to provide an inexpensive house for the initial purchase

-for God to provide materials and volunteers to help rehab the house

-for God to provide an affordable rental for us until the house is done

-for continued patience, leading and guiding from God as we navigate through this process

Thanks for your support as we continue on this incredible journey!  We really appreciate your prayers and we know that God uses them to carry out his plan!

Children's Worship Launch!

God works in amazing ways.  Last year Gold Ave Church saw an increasing number of families with young kids at church.  The need for children to learn to experience God in an age appropriate setting and for the parents to be able to focus and participate more in the church service became apparent.  The church leadership decided to spend a few months praying for God's will and asked God to send people to help start this and other ministries to children and youth.

At the same time we were still in Romania preparing for our return home.  We were asking God to prepare us for a new ministry and were trusting that when we returned he would show us what that would be.  Only two weeks after stepping off the plane, through many "chance" meetings, we got to know the pastors of this church.  We felt God strongly leading us and answering our prayers and the prayers of the church!

For the past few months we planned for the launch of children's worship with a great team of people who are passionate about ministering to kids.  A week ago we were able to launch and praise God, it was awesome!

We started out with 15 kids in total and they all had a great time!  We learned about God through a lesson from the Jesus Storybook Bible.  This has great pictures and tells the whole story of the bible as God's story, and each chapter points toward Jesus. 

Everyone enjoyed singing songs with motions and having some freedom to have fun while praising God!

The last part is a special time of prayer journaling where the kids are encouraged to listen to what God is telling them through the Bible story.  We really want to raise these kids up as followers of Jesus who are able to listen to and follow God's voice.  We have a prayer time at the end where we encourage the kids to pray for one another.  This is where the biggest learning curve is for the kids.  We as leaders are modeling listening prayer and spoken prayer, would you pray that the kids catch on quickly?  Please pray that they stay excited and continue to enjoy deepening their relationship with God.

Praise God for his guiding hand in the process of launching this ministry, and ask that he continues to bless it.  We prayerfully look forward to many more ways that we can minister to the kids of the church and neighborhood.  Please continue to pray for God's leading.  Thanks for praying and for joining in what God is doing here!